Free Fall
by Kimi-sama
Summary: Memories could never compare to the real freedom, the speed, the triumph of flight. And then he laughed and let it ring brilliantly out across the sky. One-shot, how it could end.


In the end there was only Harry Potter and Voldemort, as it was meant to be. They faced each other across the battlefield, Harry, panting with exertion and Voldemort resembling nothing so much as a hunched gargoyle, all his presence had seeped put of him as he used more and more of his powers to keep his army in fighting shape.  
  
The air was still, as though holding it's breath and neither opponent spoke a word to the other. All had been said before. This was a time to end things, not to banter. And suddenly the breath ended and there was an endless indrawn moment where they both reached for their wands...  
  
"Aww, Grandpa she's heard this story a thousand times! Harry wins and saves the day, again, and everybody lives happily ever after. So what." The thirteen year-old girl rolled her eye's with the cynicism that came so easily to teenagers. "Pick something new, or at least something you haven't told so often. I know! How about the time Harry blew up his Aunt?"  
  
"You're ruining it Cassie!" A much smaller child shouted indignantly. "I wanted to hear about how Harry defeated Voldemort and you ruined it!" She began working herself up to a good cry.  
  
Cassie scowled and crossed her arms. "I don't know why you get so involved in these stupid stories Grandpa tells anyways. It's not like their real or anything." She sneered knowing that in a way her little sister did think they were real. The child burst into loud tears and flung herself at her grandfather's leg as Cassie left the room in a huff.  
  
"You don't know that! Grandpa says all the magic went away after Voldemort died. It could have happened!" She wailed after her departed sister. "Couldn't it have happened Grandpa?"  
  
She looked up at him hopefully and repressed a sniffle. Her grandpa smiled down at her and hoisted her into the air with a grunt.  
  
"If you think it happened, that's all that matters." He was rewarded with a smile filled with all the wonders and enchantments of the world. The kind of smile people lost as they got older. It never failed to warm his old heart when his granddaughter smiled at him like that. He set her down on the bed, where she'd been before Cassie had interrupted, and tucked her in.  
  
"Are you going to finish it now Grandpa?" She asked.  
  
"I think we're done for tonight. It's late and if your parents find out how I kept you up when they come for you tomorrow morning they'll never let you stay with me again."  
  
"Oh please! Pretty please with sugar on top? Just a little bit more?" She sat up and he gently pushed her back down and tucked her in again.  
  
"Alright, just little bit more." He gave in and grinned as the little girl whooped her victory.  
  
"Tell me about the magic." she demanded. "Why did it leave?"  
  
"No one knows why magic disappeared after Voldemort died. A lot of people thought that it was some sort of revenge the Dark Lord planned in case he lost the battle. No one really had time to study it. They just woke up one day and magic suddenly wasn't so reliable. And the next day it was worse. You wouldn't believe how many panicked people flooded the magic hospitals thinking they were somehow turning into squibs.  
  
In only a few short weeks all of the magical creatures were gone and the paintings and pictures stopped moving. Magic clocks stopped working and confused wizards and witches struggled to get jobs-."  
  
"And some of them didn't even know how to clean a house without magic, right Grandpa?" The little girl piped up giggling.  
  
"That's right. Some couldn't clean their own houses. But slowly, they got used to doing things without magic. Time passed and only a generation later magic was completely forgotten. The former witches and wizards never mentioned magic anymore and everybody moved on with their lives except a few people here and there who found their own ways of passing down their magical heritage without getting locked in a loony bin by their children."  
  
"And Harry?" The girl yawned hugely, her eye's drifting close even as she spoke. "Tell me what happened to Harry Potter and his friends."  
  
"Harry Potter finished muggle school, got a good job, and had a wonderful family. His friends all slowly drifted away because it was too painful to be around each other and be constantly reminded of the magic they'd lost. And his children grow up and had children of their own." The child was snoring softly now but he kept speaking in a quiet, soothing voice. "And one day he woke up and realized he's gotten old without noticing and that all of his old friends had died so when he died there would be no one left to remember Hogwarts and the little slice of paradise they'd held in their hands and fought so rigorously to defend. So he started telling his family about Hogwarts and the adventures he'd had there even though they thought they were fairy tales. That way when he was gone someone would remember."  
  
He was silent for a moment staring down at the small girl and smoothing down her wild black hair. He bent slowly down, deposited a soft kiss upon her forehead and whispered goodnight. Then he left the room and shuffled slowly to his own, closing the door firmly behind himself. He turned the light on in the closet and looked for a moment at the old door in the back that even his wife had not seen behind when she was alive. He lifted his hands to open the door, saw they trembled and clutched them together for a brief second, vainly trying to still them before he turned the knob.  
  
Light spilled into the dusty room beyond and the old man's breath hitched at the treasures stored there. Relics from his school days, untouched for many years. He simply stared into the room for a time, not really seeing it at all. Instead, he watched the memories rise up from the floor like ghosts until he could take it no more and slowly shut the door, got ready for bed and went to sleep.  
  
"...Harry..."  
  
"Harry."  
  
"C'mon mate! Wake up already!"  
  
Harry jolted awake to see Ron standing before a broom in each hand and grinning from ear to ear.  
  
"Merlin, you sleep like the dead! I thought you were going to make us late for the game. C'mon, get up." He shooed Harry out of his bed good-naturedly and Harry found to his surprise that he was fully dressed no older than sixteen.  
  
"Ron?" He gaped "But you're-."  
  
"Never mind that now. Here, take your broom. I found it in the closet all dirty and looking like you hadn't touched it in ages. Not to worry though, I cleaned it up for you. I can't imagine why you'd stick a good broom like that in a closet."  
  
Harry took the broom numbly and suddenly wasn't quiet sure why the broom had been in the closet either, his family seemed suddenly very far away and not that important at all. They had each other to lean on; they didn't need a doddering old fool to bumble around messing things up.  
  
"We need to go," Ron was practically tap-dancing his impatience. "the game's supposed to start any minute but I suppose your mum and Dad and everybody will want to say hello first."  
  
"Mum?"  
  
"Yes, and the sooner we get there the sooner you can meet them and tell 'Mione to stop badgering me about cutting back on Quidditch." He swung his leg over his broom.  
  
Harry looked down at his own broom, gleaming and newly polishedl, looking for all the world like it had just come out of Quality Quidditch Supplies and thought back on the little girl sleeping not to far away. Ron noticed his distraction and gently touched his shoulder.  
  
"Harry, you've done good, it's time to take a rest." He said quietly, a warm smile curling at the corners of his mouth. "Now get on that broom."  
  
"But magic-."  
  
"Is in you."  
  
Harry's young, strong hands clenched tightly upon the wooden shaft and he swung his leg over the broom in one decisive movement. Ron was grinning again. The red-haired boy laughed and slapped him on the back.  
  
"Lets go! It's this way!" With that the freckled boy pushed off the ground and zoomed upward.  
  
"Wait! Wait for me!" Harry called, hesitated, pushed off and... he was flying.  
  
It was so much better than he remembered. Memories could never compare to the real freedom, the speed, the triumph of flight. Exhilarated, his heart singing in his chest, tears of joy shimmering in his eye's, Harry Potter flew for the first time in over fifty years. Up and up he soared. Higher than he'd ever gone before, chasing the speck that was Ronald Weasley until it faded from view. And then he laughed and let it ring brilliantly out across the sky until he too began to fade.  
  
Warmth engulfed him like a pair of welcoming arms, it felt like love, it felt like friendship, it felt like...  
  
"Harry! You made it."  
  
"Mum? Dad?"  
  
It felt like he was home.  
  
********  
  
...You know I nearly deleted this before realizing it was a completed one- shot. Then I wasn't sure whether I liked it enough to post it so I had my sister read it and give me her opinion. I made some changes and here it is! Yay! Or not.  
  
Anyway, I don't own Harry Potter and anything related to that sort of stuff. Don't sue. 


End file.
